Judy Collins: Sweet, sassy

Concert review

November 9, 2009|By Jim Abbott, Sentinel Music Critic

Although a songwriter, folk icon Judy Collins is best known as an interpreter of material by the most revered stars of the 1960s folk movement.

That description, however, doesn't do justice to the way in which Collins takes the music of others and makes it her own. In a sweet, sassy and impressively intimate 90-minute performance on Saturday at the Plaza Theatre, Collins delivered in the best folk tradition.

At 70, Collins has been in the spotlight professionally for 50 years now, and that experience is evident. On her current tour, riding the wave of a well-received six-week residency in New York this past spring, Collins is out there with minimalist approach.

A guitar. A piano. A vase filled with a dozen red roses. A spotlight and a microphone.

And, of course, a set list loaded with the signature songs of a generation.

"The '60s are coming back," Collins announced with a chuckle in the early going, "and I know you'll want to know that."

The audience that filled maybe 75 percent of the theater generally looked to be folks who had experienced that decade the first time around. On Saturday, Collins heightened the nostalgic impact of songs such as the opening "Chelsea Morning" with chatty monologues about her early days in New York and encounters with songwriters such as Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell.

It might not initially come to mind, because of that lovely voice, but the woman has a sense of humor. As she fiddled with the tuning on her 12-string guitar, she delivered reliable one-liners about everything from working with Dolly Parton to safe sex and Viagra ads.

"I remember the days when nobody worried about anything," she said.

She thanked Elizabeth Arden for helping her to "look and sound like Judy Collins" and talked about her love of pedicures, "so that people don't think my gardener does my feet." That line, she confessed, was borrowed from comedian Lenny Bruce.

Amid all the conversation, there was delicate, expressive music: Joni Mitchell's "Chelsea Morning," a melding of John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads" to the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood."

The latter featured harmonies from pianist Russell Walden, who added understated keyboard figures to the foundation of Collins' gentle strumming. His biggest contribution came in the ragtime transformation of Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans."

A few more spirited numbers would have been welcome, but when Collins wrapped her voice around a ballad such as "Diamonds and Rust" or "Both Sides Now" she was still the "ruby-throated sparrow" immortalized by Stephen Stills in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes."